Best fish for hair algae?

I had a hair algea problem for a while.. Literally all I did was a series of water changes for a few weeks and its all gone now.. I guess cucumbers work too though..

 

lawnmower blenny will do yard work

 

yellow eyed kole tang would be cool. they eat hair algae and are pretty so it could stay in the tank as a permanent resident of algae destruction.

i had a lawnmower blenny and it never touched the darn hair algae. i still have that algae to this day..

 

Turbo Snails, or Sally Lightfoot Crab...they mow down algae like there is no tomorrow...4 turbos cleaned my 70g predator tank in like 4 days...and it was covered, even the back glass...but now i have none

 

Had a nasty case in my 75g when I made the switch from my 55g. Bought a two barred rabbit. I counldn't have GHA if I wanted it in my tank now!
Two Barred Rabbitfish

 

QUOTE: I'm thinking of cycling my tank with mollies. So did you just get them as a clean-up crew?

-No, I had a wipe out with ich. Lost over $200 of fish. Picked up some mollies because they were $2 each as a test to make sure the tank was ich free before I got anything expensive again. That and I was curious to see if they would really adapt to salt water. Third, I read they graze on algae, which is true. They can't keep up with a bad outbreak, but suppliment the snails.

QUOTE: Do you have other fish in with the Mollies? Just curious, as I have an algae problem, but also have a small Blue Tang (maybe 3"), a Royal Gramma, and 2 O. Clowns.

-At different times I've had a yellow tang, firefish, royal gramma, and clown in with the mollies. The mollies are extremely peaceful with everything. Only annoying thing is a male mollie will continuously harrass the females trying to mate. You need like one male with 5 or more females or the females will be drove crazy.

 

i have heard sea hares will also eat hair algae. i hadnt ever heard that mollies would. i have been fighting hair algae for a while. i may have to go get a few mollies next week.

 

I'm wondering why no one has suggested this yet.

My belief is to fight algae with algae. Don't rely on a fish or invert to eat the algae, because the algae will still grow back, and then the fish/invert will run out of food. Inverts can die from this, but fish will just eat what you feed them outside of the tank.

Buy some macro algae, and either set up a refugium or put the algae directly in the display tank. Some macro algaes look awesome, just like underwater plants (which is what they are...) you can buy macro algaes that look like ferns or other types of common plants, as well as deep red algaes that look more like coral than anything else.

We've used macro algae in all 3 of our tanks (reef tank and 2 mantis tanks) and it worked like a charm in all three. Three different types of algae in all three. It starves the hair algae and other algae by consuming its food and nutrients. Then when it's absorbed all it can and there's nothing left in the tank, it starts to die itself (unless your tank is dirty enough to sustain it) then it either stays in balance with your tank's mess where it doesn't grow or shrink, or it dies off completely as it did with our 3 tanks.

Fight algae with algae. Don't bother recruiting critters to do it for you if it's just hair algae.

 

Good point Jwin. A fuge will def. help. I was searching for my last fish and came across the rabbit. Not knowing it would destroy my GHA. But, you are right. Algae battling algae is the way to go.

 

I know vampire tangs are known to eat hair algae like pros!

But it is a good idea to attack the hair algae from the roots like said above